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47,382 public-domain books, summarised. Page 671 of 988.

The Good Hope: (In "The Drama: A Quarterly Review of Dramatic Literature")
Herman Heijermans
A desperate Dutch fishing community is pushed to sea on an unseaworthy vessel, where corporate greed and the unrelenting ocean claim their lives.

The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 36, July 15, 1897: A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls
Various
This weekly publication serves as a window into the late Victorian era, distilling complex global politics, social experiments, and technological curiosities into accessible dispatches for young readers. Its enduring value lies in its earnest attempt to explain the interconnectedness of nations at the dawn of the…

The Hunter Hercules, or, The Champion Rider of the Plains: A Romance of the Prairies
St. George Rathborne
When a young Texas hunter and his fair companion are ambushed on the sun-baked prairie, an eccentric cast of frontier allies—including a spangled circus acrobat and a French naturalist wielding a silk umbrella—must unite to outwit their Comanche captors.

The Italian Alp-bee
H. C. (Heinrich C.) Hermann
A clear-eyed look at mountain bees offers a sharp defense of regional natural history and practical hive management.

The Little Child's Book of Divinity: or Grandmamma's Stories about Bible Doctrines
John R. (John Ross) Macduff
A gentle Scottish grandmother sits by a winter hearth, translating the complexities of Christian doctrine into clear, comforting dialogue for her young granddaughter over eight quiet Sabbath evenings.

The Master Mummer
E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
An impulsive act of kindness pulls three struggling artists into a dangerous web of international intrigue and aristocratic secrets, centering on the mysterious, vulnerable girl they rescue from a train-bound stranger.

The Mentor: Painters of Western Life, Vol 3, Num. 9, Serial No. 85, June 15, 1915
Arthur Hoeber
A vivid, vanished American frontier comes alive through the brushes of men who lived its danger, captured its wild kinetic energy, and immortalized a landscape before wire fences and towns transformed it forever.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 563, August 25, 1832
Various
A glance into a bygone era reveals how a nineteenth-century public found delight and instruction wrapped in a single, affordable weekend paper.

The Missionary: An Indian Tale
Morgan, Sydney, Lady
An impossible love between a Portuguese missionary and an Indian priestess collides with the unyielding dogmas of colonial religion and traditional caste.

The Music Master
Charles Klein
HOOK A devoted father searches for his lost daughter in New York, navigating poverty and social divides before finding the peace he has long sought.

The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan, or: the Headless Horror
Unknown
A pregnant young woman vanishes from her Indiana home, only to be found beheaded in a Kentucky orchard, igniting a sensational, coast-to-coast nineteenth-century murder investigation.

The New Abelard: A Romance, Volume 2 (of 3)
Robert Williams Buchanan
A fallen clergyman and the brilliant woman who funded his new sanctuary must confront the catastrophic lie that undermines their radical spiritual movement.

The nugget finders
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
A pair of sixteen-year-old boys set out for the nineteenth-century Australian goldfields, where mud, bushrangers, and double-crossing companions stand between them and their fortune.

The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5
Various
Gentle moral instruction meets the tiny, dramatic realities of childhood in a collection designed for very young listeners.

The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake
Laura Lee Hope
Summer brings a motorboat, a runaway horse, missing legal papers, and a lake ghost to four lively high school chums.

The Plain Man and His Wife
Arnold Bennett
The average person navigates life like an automaton, trapped in a relentless cycle of routine while missing the vitality that makes existence worthwhile. A candid examination of one's own habits can break this trance.

The red fetish
Frank Belknap Long
A desperation born of thirst turns two castaways on a barren atoll into monstrous rivals, forcing a deadly choice between starvation and a terrifying swim through shark-infested waters.

The Running Fight
William Hamilton Osborne
A ruthless financier framed an innocent man to save his corrupt empire, but love, law, and relentless truth ignite a fight to the finish.

The Secrets of the Harem
Anonymous
An observant foreign visitor pulls back the heavy curtains of nineteenth-century Ottoman homes to reveal the quiet, playful, and surprisingly tranquil lives of the women inside.

The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment
Joseph Bates
A devout mid-19th-century believer argues that the seventh-day Sabbath was never abolished, urging fellow Christians to return to the original commandment to prepare for the imminent second coming of Jesus Christ.

The Story of a Needle
A. L. O. E.
A simple piece of manufactured steel reflects on its creation and learns the quiet joys and sorrows of human life within an anxious household.

The Story of the Duchess of Cicogne and of Monsieur de Boulingrin: 1920
Anatole France
A cynical, elegant retelling of the Sleeping Beauty myth, this prose narrative suggests that even when destiny strikes with supernatural force, human beings will stubbornly insist on finding a rational—or political—explanation.

The Summers readers: primer
Maud Summers
A quiet room, a small child, and the sudden, magical realization that written marks on a page can talk.

The White Road of Mystery: The Note-Book of an American Ambulancier
Philip Dana Orcutt
A young volunteer drives light motorized ambulances along the battered Western Front, recording the stark rhythms, absurd humor, and quiet tragedy of life in the line of fire.

The Wizard's Son, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
A young Scottish lord must break a centuries-old ancestral curse by surrendering his self-absorbed pride to a genuine, selfless love.

The Young Alaskans on the Trail
Emerson Hough
The wilderness is not a playground but a classroom, and these boys are determined to earn their keep by mastering the ancient, unforgiving rules of the trail.

The Young Wireless Operator—Afloat
Lewis E. (Lewis Edwin) Theiss
A teenage radio operator proves his mettle at sea, winning over an exacting captain during a disastrous Gulf hurricane.

Thirty Years Since
Unknown
A family reduced to its final acres finds itself pursued by an old enemy whose hatred outlives the original insult.

Thoughts on the Necessity of Improving the Condition of the Slaves in the British Colonies: With a View to Their Ultimate Emancipation
Thomas Clarkson
The path toward freedom is not merely a moral imperative but a practical necessity, grounded in the undeniable truth that human dignity and economic prosperity are allies, not enemies.

Thunder in the void
Henry Kuttner
A hardened convict escapes into a arctic blizzard, only to be forced into a suicidal voyage to Pluto that shatters mankind's understanding of the solar system.

Turkey: a Past and a Future
Arnold Toynbee
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War serves as the catalyst for this critical examination of a fading, multi-ethnic power and its uncertain future.

Twenty tales by twenty women: From real life in Chicago
Anonymous
A young woman in Chicago discovers that love, ambition, and social judgment carry steep prices in a rapidly changing city.

Vittoria
George Meredith
The struggle for Italian independence provides the backdrop for this intense, sprawling drama of personal and political loyalty. In a world where every public action risks a private tragedy, the characters must navigate the friction between their revolutionary ideals and the inescapable demands of the human heart.

Water Power for the Farm and Country Home
David R. Cooper
Small creeks and forgotten streams can liberate rural properties from manual labor when harnessed through practical engineering.

What Philately Teaches: A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899
John N. (John Nicholas) Luff
A lecture exploring how the seemingly small, adhesive labels used for mail can serve as vast, intricate gateways to history, geography, and art.

Who Ate the Pink Sweetmeat? And Other Christmas Stories
Edward Everett Hale
A collection of nineteenth-century Christmas stories explores how quiet acts of kindness, accidental adventures, and unexpected winter encounters bring warmth to children of all backgrounds.

Will Rossiter's Original Talkalogues by American Jokers
Unknown
Quick-witted stage comedy, vernacular banter, and turn-of-the-century vaudeville gags collide in this lively anthology of early American performance material and commercial pitchcraft.

Woman in Political Evolution
Joseph McCabe
A grand historical survey tracing how human civilizations have restricted or elevated women, proving that modern demands for the vote are not a sudden social disruption, but the inevitable final phase of political evolution.

A book of Christmas verse
Unknown
A midwinter journey through centuries of song, this anthology moves from medieval lullabies and mystical Visions to the lively, alcohol-warmed revelry of the traditional English hall.

A Constitution in Making (1660-1714)
Unknown
A nation unravels and rebuilds itself through decades of plague, fire, political intrigue, and revolutionary shifts in governance.

A Maid in Arcady
Ralph Henry Barbour
A chance summer encounter in a secluded sunlit lotus pool blooms into a mischievous game of hidden identities and unexpected devotion.

A month in Switzerland
F. Barham (Foster Barham) Zincke
An observant English clergyman treks across the High Alps with his family, turning mountain passes, quiet valleys, and local farming practices into sharp reflections on modern society, economics, and human nature.

A Narrative of the Melancholy Wreck of the "Dunbar," Merchant Ship, on the South Head of Port Jackson, August 20th, 1875
Anonymous
In the pitch-black gale of August 1857, an ocean liner misjudged the jagged cliffs of Sydney Harbour and splintered against the rocks. This contemporary document charts the devastating loss, the solitary survivor, and a city’s collective grief.

A United States Midshipman in China
Yates Stirling
Trap and bargain, river flashpoints, and a mission under siege: two American midshipmen navigate the dangerous waters of the Yangtse River to protect isolated foreign lives and navigate imperial intrigue.

A "Y" Girl in France: Letters of Katherine Shortall
Katherine Shortall
A young American woman travels to post-armistice France to support demobilizing soldiers, finding that a smile, a hot cup of cocoa, and a shared song can bridge the deepest divides.

Adela Cathcart, Volume 1
George MacDonald
A dark winter depression claims a young woman until a circle of friends gathers around her hearth to cure her through the quiet magic of storytelling.

American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States
Ebenezer Davies
The author, a British clergyman and former pastor to formerly enslaved people in the West Indies, undertakes an independent four-thousand-mile tour of the United States, documenting the stark, painful contradictions between American democratic ideals and the reality of human bondage.

An Attempt to Explain the Origin and Meaning of the Early Interlaced Ornamentation Found on the Sculptured Stones of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man
Gilbert J. (Gilbert James) French
The intricate ribbons and woven knots carved onto the ancient stone crosses of Britain and Ireland may look like abstract sacred geometry, but they actually began as simple, utilitarian basketry.